The Big Picture
OPINIONAngus MacKenzie
I
t’s fitting the C8 Corvette graces the cover of this, the
70th anniversary issue of MotorTrend magazine. We’ve
grown up together, you see.
“We wanted a magazine that would interest the
foreign car exponent, the sports car enthusiast, the
custom car fan, and also be equally interesting to the
stock car owner,” original MotorTrend editor-in-chief
Walt Woron wrote as he put the finishing touches on
the September 1949 issue. “A magazine that brings you
the trends of the automotive field: designs of the future,
what’s new in motoring, news from the Continent, trends
in design.”
MotorTrend founder Robert Petersen’s personal
connection with Southern California race car builder
Frank Kurtis perhaps explains why he chose the Kurtis
Sport Car as the first cover car for his new magazine—
rather than, say, a Chevrolet sedan, America’s top-selling
car that year. But the choice was also an eerily prescient
confirmation of MotorTrend ’s mission statement.
Within two years of the Kurtis appearing
on our cover, a senior GM executive in Detroit
had instigated a secret backroom program
code-named Project Opel, a proposal for a
fiberglass-bodied sports car that, like the
Kurtis, used many regular production car
components under its shapely skin. The
GM exec’s name? Harley Earl. And the car?
Well, it first came to the public’s attention
as the EX-122, one of the stars of GM’s 1953
Motorama Show at New York’s Waldorf Astoria hotel.
But you know it better as the original Chevrolet Corvette.
Frank Kurtis had the idea. GM had the money.
Today MotorTrend is more than just a magazine. It’s a
video on demand service, linear TV channels, a website,
and a social media phenomenon—an automotive content
creator and curator with an audience that now spans the
globe. MotorTrend has grown up. So, too, has the Chev-
rolet Corvette. The C8 is still America’s Own Sports Car,
but with its state-of-the-supercar-art chassis and mid-
engine layout, it’s built to take on all comers, from Italy’s
Ferrari to Britain’s McLaren and Germany’s Porsche.I can’t wait to drive it.
Although I’d had brief stints in C3s, C4s, and C5s over
the years, I arrived in the U.S. to become editor-in-chief
of MotorTrend just after the C6 launched in 2004. Since
then, I’ve done a lot of miles in Corvettes. Like all great
sports cars, the very best Corvettes bring even the most
mundane drives to life. And the special drives ... well,
they’re something else again.
July 2011. The afternoon traffic on the A9 autobahn
in southern Germany is unusually light. Le Mans champ
and MotorTrend presenter Justin Bell is lounging in the
passenger seat as I let the Corvette ZR1 off the leash. For
25 glorious minutes we own the fast lane, the speedo
needle never falling below 120 mph and occasionally
flickering past 180 mph when I can read the traffic in
the far distance.
We cover 55 miles in those 25 minutes, an average
speed of 132 mph, the 638-hp V-8 leaving a thundering
sonic boom in its wake, scattering slower Benzes and
BMWs and Audis like autumn leaves. We
roll into the Munich evening traffic grin-
ning from ear to ear at the sheer audacity
of it all, at the idea that even in this era of
speed cameras, fuel-sipping hybrids, and
computer-controlled cars that do most of
the driving themselves, you can still drive a
supercar at supercar speeds on a public road.
It got even better the next day, filming an
episode of “Epic Drives” for the MotorTrend
Channel on YouTube.
I punched the gas as the traffic cleared, shifting into
fifth at 160 mph and sixth at somewhere north of 180
mph. And then, with Justin watching the speedo and
counting off the increments, almost shouting to be
heard over the shrieking wall-of-sound snarl from the
supercharged small-block, I took the mighty ZR1 all the
way to 200 mph.
That is my all-time best Corvette Moment, for now. I
suspect the stunning C8 is going to provide some better
ones in the coming years. And just as we have for the past
70 years, MotorTrend will take you along for the ride. nMy Corvette Moment
Celebrating 70 years of history together
With Justin
counting off the
increments, I took
the mighty
ZR1 all theway
to 200 mph.
These screen images may be a little
fuzzy, but the memories are not.98 MOTORTREND.COM SEPTEMBER 2019